Post by Vhodka Marie on Jun 18, 2021 20:27:36 GMT -5
You think you're the king of Brooklyn
And that you've seen it all
And you can do what you want
Whenever you want
And all that you say is law
Well let me be the first
To not come crawling back to you
You're gonna wish you were crucified
When I get through with you
★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★
The force of my fist carried me through Vincent’s face, my body falling through his own like passing through a stream of water, the momentum of my anger carrying me past that night and through the days afterwards in a haze of confusion and discomfort. The admission that he had set me up to be attacked by his ex-wife was not something I could have ever prepared myself for, I thought... well, I don’t know what I thought, exactly. That I was special? That I took precedence? As the words fell from his lips my estimation of myself through his eyes slipped into a freefall, obliterating any sense of stable ground I had gained before that moment. I realize you’re probably very tired of hearing all of this, as tired as I am of living it. But it’s something I need to work out and I’d appreciate it if you’d take the journey with me, maybe hold my hand here and there when I need it. It’s more than what anyone else would do for me.
Before that moment I had been caught up in a different betrayal, the betrayal of him outing us to the daughter I had carefully spent many years protecting from this sensitive information. The betrayal of him going against my wishes and forcing me to take on a role that I was neither suited nor ready for, claiming me a title that was as unwanted as the loss of my physical title at the hands of his ex-missus was. It seemed every time I turned around, he failed me in some new and extraordinary way. Is it some mutated biology that drives him to make decisions that decimate me as soon as I slip into a comfortable psychological safety within our relationship? I’ve tried over the years to wash my hands of the man, I’ve ran as fast as I can run but he always seems to come tumbling after me sooner or later, whispering sweet words of attrition, lullabies of trust and other fairy tales before Jekyll slips into Hyde and starts the whole thing over again.
Truth be told, I’m not feeling any better about myself than I am feeling about him. In fact, it’s quite possible that I feel worse about that. You see, it all goes back to... her. Ripley. Her name is Ripley. It occurs to me that I need to get more comfortable saying it so I’ll try to put that to practice here with you. For all the betrayal Vincent has put me through it amounts to nothing compared to the betrayal of our daughter. After all, what sort of person grows this tiny spark of life inside the cradle of their womb for nine sweet months and then hands it off to the first half decent person who appears and is willing to acquiesce. That isn’t a dig at Alexis, she’s fine. More than fine, actually. Alexis is a woman who possesses all the qualities that I seem to be deficient in. Maturity, maternal instinct, talent, I could go on. The thing about me is that I am a coward of the worst kind. I’ve spent years compartmentalizing our daughter into this tiny little box in the back of my mind so that I would never have to arrive at the day that I had to look her in the eye and tell her why I gave her away. True, I had my reasons at the time and I’ve had my reasons over the years to keep up the script but are any of those reasons good enough for an innocent child who had no choice in being born?
When I found out about her and went to Vincent... when he told me those words that would change the course of several lives... well, more cowardice on my part. I should have stood up and objected, I should have told him where to go and how to get there. I wanted her. I WANTED HER. But I wanted him more, just like I’ve always wanted him more than anything else – even to my own detriment. And instead of advocating for myself, for Ripley, for what could have been, instead of all of that I did what I always do and just... went along. In that moment Vincent was more important than her life, his affection and attention was much more valuable to me than the life growing inside of me. She was inconsequential in the heat of my adoration. Now we have arrived at the day that the barn door has been blown open and the secrets are spilling out like horses frightened by an impending storm. The day had arrived that I had to stand and stare her in the eye and tell her that a man was more important than she was. If I tell you I didn’t want to do it to save her some pain, know that it’s a lie. I didn’t want to do it because I was a coward.
There was a time that I thought that I could do this, be this, wanted this. Once many years ago I had been prepared to be a mother despite not being much older than a child, it didn’t matter. I carried that baby for the nine months, I went to the hospital and then I came home empty handed. Someone wiser than me might be able to tell you that this all goes back to that loss that perhaps the reason I have resisted Ripley for so long is only out of fear. Maybe.
« Buck Bickett »
Cricket?
His voice startled me, brought me back into myself from wherever I had been in the time before. It was like forgetting to breathe and suddenly filling your lungs as deeply as you could when you remembered again. The heat hit my body like a wave, a drop of sweat at the nape of my neck rolling down my spine to disappear underneath the light weight tank top. I took a moment to gather my face before turning to look at my father who was approaching like you might approach a feral cat you expected to bolt if you moved too quickly in its direction.
« Buck Bickett »
Thought I might find you here.
Buck stood above me with his hands in his back pockets as he rocked back on his heels looking at the weather worn piece of stone sitting in the ground before us. The name it bears is unimportant, a secret for me to keep to myself. There is something about saying that name that makes it feel more real, more final. I find that if I don’t say it aloud, that I can separate myself from the whole thing and pretend that all of this happened to someone else. I guess that’s not too far from the truth really as the young girl who bore this child is not the same person as the woman kneeling in the overgrown grass now before the only physical reminder that he had ever existed at all.
« Vhodka Marie »
You hate coming here.
Buck looked out into the distance across the cemetery, nodding to himself while he chose his next words carefully. My father, much like myself, didn’t do emotion. That was my mother Beulah’s area of expertise and to be honest I was a bit taken aback that he was here and not her. My mother would have known where I had disappeared to, she would know what was eating my insides like a child ravaging a ripened pomegranate. That my father was here and not my mother said something, something important, something that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. But in my defense, it had been a rough few days for me. Buck removed his hands from his pockets before he kneeled down beside me, nervously removing a few spare weeds that had sprung up next to the headstone.
« Buck Bickett »
I come here sometimes; you know. Make sure everything is cared for proper, the way he deserves.
I hadn’t known this, actually. My father avoided cemeteries like the plague. The thought of him coming here in secret to tend the grave of his grandchild caught something in my throat and made my eyes well a bit. He and I never talked about this, not after it happened and not since. It was an unspoken agreement between us that we both would rather just pretend that it had never happened. When I came home from the hospital empty handed my mother had taken on the role of my caretaker, tending to me and talking me through the pain of the after contractions. That’s something that no one tells you, that even after you have birthed your child your contractions will still persist for the next few days after. It seemed an especially cruel twist of fate that I had to endure not only the physical pain but the emotional as well. I remember my mother holding my head in her lap, stroking my hair as I cried. My body curled around her legs as it tried to make sense of what had happened to it. My father cleared his throat some, I’d been quiet for too long.
« Buck Bickett »
Cricket, you have to know I never meant for any of this to happen. I would have never willingly put you in this sorta predicament, you have to know that.
He’s talking about a few weeks ago when he cornered Vincent about the existence of Ripley. He had gone there in full on dad-mode, planning to defend the honor of his daughter and grandchild. Instead, he had accidentally dialed Alexis and set in motion this whole chain of events. I knew my dad well enough to know that he’d probably beaten himself up over this whole thing more than he’d ever let on. Something I couldn’t help but think he deserved.
« Vhodka Marie »
I know, daddy. It’s not that, it’s just... it’s everything.
« Buck Bickett »
It’s City Boy isn’t it?
« Vhodka Marie »
I know you know his name.
Buck sighed, looking down and studying the blades of grass before him.
« Buck Bickett »
Yeah, I know his name. You want to talk about it?
A chuckle slipped out of my lips before I could muffle it. The thought of my dad wanting to talk about feelings and relationship problems was bizarre. I kind of felt like I was walking around in a dream, nothing I touched seemed solid and everything was just a little bit off from how it normally was. How did I end up here? How did we end up here?
« Vhodka Marie »
I can’t believe you’re offering.
« Buck Bickett »
You’re hurtin’, I can see that same as I can see a burr in a bullfrog. What kinda father would I be if I let my only born mope around town for the rest of her days without at least tryinta’ fix it some.
« Vhodka Marie »
I don’t know how to fix it, daddy.
And that was the god's honest truth. It seemed like ever since the first time I met Vincent things had just gone screwy for us. Maybe it was us, something deficient in us that made us cut each other up like sticking your hand through a glass door to twist the knob on the other side.
« Buck Bickett »
Reckon we’ll figure it out together, bug.
Buck smiled softly, chucking me on the chin as he did. I knew that he was hoping to cheer me up but the sight of my father trying so hard to make everything okay again absolutely undid me. All of the emotion I’d been holding in suddenly came pouring out of my body in salty tears and great heaves. Somewhere in the middle of it my father had pulled me into his lap and was rocking me like he used to when I was itty bitty. Shushing me as I sobbed into the stiff material of his denim shirt, murmuring quietly that he would fix it all and that’d it’d be okay again.
« Vhodka Marie »
I just want to be special.
« Buck Bickett »
What makes you think you aren’t?
« Vhodka Marie »
He chose her over me, dad. Again. He promised and he did it again.
« Buck Bickett »
Well, what was his reasonin’ on that?
« Vhodka Marie »
What?
« Buck Bickett »
His reasoning. Why he did it. Boy must have had a good reason for doing what he did. Seems a man like that don’t do nothin’ without a reason.
« Vhodka Marie »
He said something about feeling like we needed to work it out.
« Buck Bickett »
And?
« Vhodka Marie »
And what?
« Buck Bickett »
Did he explain what he meant by that?
« Vhodka Marie »
I mean, no. We didn’t get that in depth.
« Buck Bickett »
Ah uh, and whys’ that?
« Vhodka Marie »
Cause I punched him in the face and told him I never wanted to see him again.
Buck chuckled softly, then released me to sit back on my own in the grass. I could tell he was amused by the fact that I had socked Vincent in the face but was trying not to seem too up on the idea. After all, he was supposed to be helping.
« Buck Bickett »
So, you’re telling me instead of giving the man a chance to explain you just hauled off and popped him one and stormed off? Lordy, you’re more like your mother every day.
« Vhodka Marie »
Oh hush. Mama ain’t never hit you.
« Buck Bickett »
Yup and a week ago you’d also have said your mama wouldn’t ever kill a man. Guess neither one of us know her quite as well as we think.
I considered this information and tried to think back over my life to any disagreements my parents may have had. To be truthful, they were few and far between. My father knew the line and he toed it; my mother reminded him with a steely gaze anytime he might have thought about deviating and that was that. In truth, I guess I kind of measured the relationship that Vincent and I had against that of my parents. My parents had always seemed so effortless, two people just plain meant for each other. There weren’t any struggles, any screaming matches and up until a moment ago I would have sworn on the grave before us that no punches had ever been thrown in our house. What a week this was turning out to be.
« Vhodka Marie »
What the heck did you do to her?
« Buck Bickett »
Now, that ain’t important.
« Vhodka Marie »
No way. You don’t get to throw that out there and then not tell me what happened. Get to spillin’.
« Buck Bickett »
Well, you didn’t think she’d just let me off the hook easy with this whole phone thing, did ya?
« Vhodka Marie »
Wow, I’m impressed.
« Buck Bickett »
That makes two of us. I’m lucky she didn’t shoot me.
« Vhodka Marie »
Nah, she wouldn’t use the shotgun. Skillet is her weapon of choice.
« Buck Bickett »
Can’t believe she been feedin’ us outta that thing all these years.
Buck shook his head at the nonchalantlessness of his bride. His eyes finally focused on my own after a cursory scan around the cemetery. Seemed like he was looking for the right words to say that would fix all of this but still coming up short.
« Buck Bickett »
Look, I don’t know nothin’ about nothin’, you know that. But I know that man loves you and if whatever he did ‘tween you and the ex-missus he musta had a damn good reason for. You love’em right?
« Vhodka Marie »
Of course.
« Buck Bickett »
Well, then you owe it to yourself to sit down and CALMLY have a chat with the man and see where his head was about over the whole thing. You’re my flesh and blood and I’m always on your side but I don’t think you quite appreciate the position the man finds himself in.
« Vhodka Marie »
What do you mean? What position?
« Buck Bickett »
Caught between the mother of his children and the mother of his child. Say he got wind of what was fixin’ to go down, what were he to do? You want him to go out there and manhandle the woman in front of God, his flock and his own flesh and blood children?
« Vhodka Marie »
Ideally? Yeah.
« Buck Bickett »
Cricket that ain’t right and you know it.
« Vhodka Marie »
He could have at least warned me.
« Buck Bickett »
For what reason? Throw you off your game? I wasn’t there with the man but if it were me... well, I know you pretty well myself and I’d think you could handle it. No sense in having you lookin’ over your shoulder when I knew you had the cat in the cradle.
« Vhodka Marie »
Even if I give him the benefit of the doubt on this, what about Ripley? He took my choice. Again.
« Buck Bickett »
He did what was right. I’ll stand with the boy on this one, you’re in the wrong, bug.
« Vhodka Marie »
I wasn’t ready for this, daddy. It’s not time.
« Buck Bickett »
Ain’t no one ever ready to be a parent. Just happens. You think your mama and I were ready when you came along? Hells no. But you was here and it was time to put up or shut up. Most folks don’t get the chance to decide when they’re ready to be a parent, they just do it ‘cause they must.
« Vhodka Marie »
And you’re saying I must.
« Buck Bickett »
I’m sayin’ you’re long overdue. I know you’re scared but you don’t need to be. You got your mama and I. You got the boy. Heck, you even got them kids you two been messin’ around with. Plenty of people are there to catch you if you stumble. It ain’t gotta be just you.
« Vhodka Marie »
What if... what if she doesn’t want me?
« Buck Bickett »
How could she not, bug?
Buck smiled, cradling my chin in the roughed skin of his hand as he looked at me like I was the most amazing thing in the whole world. To him, maybe I was. Even if I didn’t feel like it myself at that very moment. He released my face, putting his hands on his knees before he stood up and offered me a hand to join him.
« Buck Bickett »
Saw some news ‘bout your place of employment. Fellar said they might fold. You give any thought to whatcha gonna do if it comes down to it?
« Vhodka Marie »
I’m going to do what I always do, daddy. I’m going to Fight.
« Buck Bickett »
Wouldn’t be you if you didn’t.
And just like that, my father, the most unlikely person in my life, had helped to steady my world and sat me right back on my feet. Even though I was scared, I would do this. Even though a part of me was still angry with Vincent, I could consider now that maybe in my rush to tend to my own hurt feelings I hadn’t considered the feelings of the man I loved. Maybe dad was right, maybe he was in between a rock and a hard place. This match coming up at the last ever Showcase certainly wouldn’t help matters, though. I couldn’t tell you the last time Candice and I had been in a ring together, it had to have been at least a decade ago, and even still back then we were still on the same side of the fence. Outwardly, at least. Inwardly, I was carrying on with her husband something that surely she had at least sensed. But if that was true then why hadn’t she ever called us on it? Why didn’t she come for me the way that I would have come for her? I’d have taken her skin off over it. Was she truly oblivious or did she just think that I was an extracurricular activity and no real threat to her seat at the head of the table? Heh, guess she’d find out differently now.
It’s ugly and unflattering to say but I welcomed the opportunity to finally get my hands on her. I wanted to hurt her, not just physically but emotionally, too. I wanted her to feel all the years of pain and shame and unwantedness that I had felt, to take her in my hands and squeeze her until everything she was spilled out between my fingers like so much meat. For years I’d felt second best, living in the shadow of the great and wise VooDoo. Second to her in Vincent’s heart, second to her in this business. Listed as an addendum in some weird side column in the annals of greatness. Maybe if I would have stuck around I could have proven something of myself, shown these people what greatness really looked like. Instead, I left and she had taken my spot in history in the same slimy way that she had taken my spot beside Vincent. I guess that’s what snakes do; slither into your home and inject their venom into the first suitable thing they sink their fangs into. It wasn’t lost on me that Vincent and I being on the outs was the perfect opportunity for her to slither through the grass and back into his metaphorical home.
I also wasn’t stupid enough to think that this match would be the end of things, no, no way that this many years of turmoil and betrayal could be packaged up cleanly with the outcome of one little match. Sometimes I wondered if we were going to end up like Skoll and Hati, both chasing our own idea of rightness for all of eternity, forever just waiting for Ragnarök to come and plunge the world into darkness. It’s kind of poetic, isn’t it? If I'm truthful with you, I’m jealous. I can admit that here and now while it’s just you and I. I’m jealous that she knows him as intimately as I do, that she got all the experiences I was denied. The marriage, the children, the family. She knew his body as intimately as I do, knew the ways to make it react the same as me. She knew his heart that way too. Or maybe she didn’t know his heart that well at all if she never realized how closely he had held me there as well.
It will be no surprise when she tells people I am the other woman or when she calls me on the jealousy that she surely must sense. There will be no shock when she brings up my former marriage, an arrangement that I entered into out of spite more than any real affection. I guess that’s one thing to be thankful for, at least that bastard was gone. I’d heard through the grapevine that he’d befallen some sort of terrible accident in some dilapidated shack he was living in. My only regret about the whole thing was that he lived through it, a coma wasn’t enough.
And yet... I wondered. I wondered if Candice had always been the dutiful wife and mother that she likes to portray to the public. She was as close to my former husband as I was to her own, and we all know the hush-hush history between Damon and Voo. Some of it on the record but most of it off. If you think Vincent and I had secrets all these years we have nothing on ol’ Damon and Voo. Or so I hear. But confidentially between you and I, wouldn’t shock me if Ripley wasn’t the only hidden child in our little corner of the world. But that’s none of my business though.
What is my business if finally getting a little bit of retribution on the big red wildebeest. See, let me tell you another little secret about the infamous VooDoo... her reputation? Built entirely on foggy memory. Tell me, when was the last time you’ve seen that woman do anything of note in her career? I think she had a tag title run a few companies and many moons ago. Some little place where the competition made the OPW tag division look like the greatest to ever lace up their boots. But aside from that, when is the last time VooDoo ever did anything of note? If my memory serves correct up until the day I arrived here she was sitting her ass on commentary just aging away and clinging on to the last shreds of notoriety she had. Then Ol’ Vhodka came back and made her relevant again. You’re welcome.
That’s the thing about Candice “VooDoo” Wolf, she is a woman who has made her entire career riding the coattails of the more successful people around her. Oss, Riggs, Black, the Wolf Family and now Vhodka Marie. Deep down, she was happy for me to come back, happy for me to take Vincent off her hands. She knew that by doing so I was setting in motion what may very well be her very last fifteen minutes of fame. Too bad for her she’s going to have to end her career the way she started it, a loser.
I was feeling confident about the match but my relationship was a whole ‘nother story. When I arrived back at our apartment, Vincent was nowhere to be found and even worse I could tell he had removed some of his items out of our apartment. After a good two-day cry about it Asher finally took mercy on me and told me that he’d gone to the beach with his children to clear his head. Then he made me some sort of complicated sandwich involving ramen noodles instead of bread and nacho cheese to bind the pepperonis to it. It was delicious, even if JJ threw up most of his. For his part, JJ made me the most beautiful cheer up card I have ever seen. It was a picture of me done in crayon with googly eyes standing on top of a mountain of Vienna sausages holding hands with himself, Vin, Asher and Pixie. Noelle was in a corner away from all the rest of us. When I thanked him for not including her, he simply said he had drawn her there because he knew she was happiest when she had her space. Precious angel. I don’t deserve either of them. Sometimes when I looked at them my breath caught in my throat and I wondered, had my son lived would he have turned out a little bit like these two? I can only hope.
As if they had organized it Sarah arrived on the heels of their departure. She was wearing her pajamas and had a tent under one of her arms, she said she felt like having a slumber party. I think they were just afraid to leave me alone in the apartment though, if I’m honest with you.
« Sarah Wolf »
Still can’t believe the two of you are fighting over a man. Not even a man, an idiot.
« Vhodka Marie »
He’s not an idiot, he’s just really stupid is all.
« Sarah Wolf »
He’s a disappointment. Like all men.
« Vhodka Marie »
I’m gonna tell Murphy you said that.
« Sarah Wolf »
BET.
Sarah squeezed the tube of cookie dough directly in her mouth looking not entirely unlike a boa constrictor unhinging its jaw to take in its next prey. I could see why she and Murphy were so successful. I could also see why we were friends because I take dough to the dome the same exact way. Crazy.
« Vhodka Marie »
Look, this shit between you and Vin is wigging me out, man. You gotta fix it.
« Sarah Wolf »
I will do no such thing. And who are you to be telling me to move on, Rocky Balboa?
« Vhodka Marie »
This is foreplay for us. Unless we move to Arkansas and make Monday's match a three way then it isn’t for you. It’s just two people who love each other dearly being mad at each other and I can’t handle it.
« Sarah Wolf »
Vee, he betrayed me. He went against everything I told him and got me... got me... this isn’t like what happened between the two of you. I can’t just let it go that easily.
She huddled in on herself, something that I have never known her to do in all the years I have known her but now since coming home to us seemed to do all the time. I understood the issues between she and Vincent made the issues between Vincent and I look like small potatoes. What had happened to Sarah at the order of that piece of shit Thomas Marke made my blood absolutely boil. Sarah had been the most whole person in my entire life. She was pure, untouched by this stupid business and the problems that follow it. She was my guiding star that helped light up the road when things got dark for me. I valued her as a friend, I loved her as a sister. We may never be blood but she and Alexis were the closest I would ever get to the sisters I used to dream about having when I was a little girl. And then to see her one day snuffed out, dimmed, returning to us less of a shining star and more of a piece of Swiss cheese. I cannot begin to tell you how it made me feel. Sarah was the smart one, the strong one. She kept all the rest of us in line with effortlessness that was astounding. That fact that she was able to manage not just her brothers, a feat unto itself, but me as well was nothing short of amazing. But that had all changed the minute she had walked back into our lives after her captivity. The new Sarah was careful, jumpy, constantly surveying her surroundings for signs of threat. It made me sad to watch her, it made me feel worse that there was nothing that I could do to help her.
« Vhodka Marie »
I’m sorry, Slim. I just know how much you love each other and it makes me want to try to fix it. Your brothers worship you, you are on an alter above all others in their lives. Hell, Candice and I should be fighting you if we want top billing for Vin.
I winked at her trying to lighten the mood and pull some of that old Sarah out of this strange new version. She ignored me though, tightening her arms around her legs and resting her chin in the hollow between her knees.
« Sarah Wolf »
I don’t want top billing in Vins life, I just want him to go away.
« Vhodka Marie »
You don’t mean that.
« Sarah Wolf »
I can’t forgive him, Vee. Not for this.
« Vhodka Marie »
Look, not to throw X under the bus or anything but I don’t get why you’re as equally mad at them. All Vin did was lie, X was the one who...
Angel of the Morning by Juice Newton rang out in the quiet of the apartment around us. Asher’s ringtone. I scrambled out from under the pile of blankets in my lap and out of the door of the tent in an effort to find my phone, finally finding it underneath a banana that Sarah had arrived with for some inexplicable reason.
« Vhodka Marie »
ANGEL? What is it?
« Asher Jules »
Miss I need you right off. Got a big issue only you can help. Noelle is being very mea--
The phone was airbound before he could even finish his sentence and my keys were in my hand. Sarah’s head popped out of the tent, dodging the wayward phone as she looked on at me in confusion.
« Sarah Wolf »
Who is that? Are you leaving? Where are you going?
« Vhodka Marie »
NO TIME. MY BABY NEEDS ME.
Maybe I wouldn’t be a half bad mother, after all.